COLUMBUS — Their epic comeback was not inspired by a garbage can-crumpling tantrum or a profanity-laced tirade.

Twenty minutes from what could have been a Halloween humiliation at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, the Calgary Flames were not carving each other up like jack-o-lanterns.

Instead, as a frustrated squad sized up a three-goal deficit in one of the NHL’s most raucous rinks, one of their leadership sorts — second-line centre Mikael Backlund — provided a little bit of a look-at-the-bright-side.

“He was like, ‘Well, we’ve been up in the last couple and we haven’t been able to win those ones … So might as well come back in one that we’re down in,’ ” revealed Flames captain Mark Giordano.

Good plan.

Backlund’s buddies buried three straight goals to silence the home crowd and tie the score and then, after the host Predators pulled ahead again with 1:21 remaining in regulation, the Matthew Tkachuk Show started.

With Calgary’s goaltender pulled for an extra attacker, No. 19 banged home a rebound for a late equalizer. With less than two seconds left in three-on-three overtime, the tenacious talent capped off an improbable comeback with a between-the-legs snipe that most guys wouldn’t even dream of.

Instead of a deflating defeat, the Flames are riding a wave of unexpected momentum into Saturday’s clash with the Columbus Blue Jackets (5 p.m. MT, Sportsnet West/Sportsnet 960 The Fan).

“The way Nashville was kind of taking it to us in the first two periods, it looked like it was going to get ugly — and hopefully it wouldn’t,” admitted third-line centre Derek Ryan after Friday’s practice in Columbus. “We just kind of found a way to get our swagger back, get our confidence and hang onto pucks and make plays. And it went from there.

“I’ve been calling it kind of a turning point. We’re trying to springboard and jump off that third period, put together some good hockey for stretches here. I think we’ve done it in bits and pieces in the beginning part of the season, but we really haven’t put together a decent stretch of games where we’ve been playing our best.

“So hopefully we can springboard off that third period and continue to use that momentum and swagger and confidence to play that way.”

Indeed, what comes next will be fascinating.

The Flames (7-6-2) have been about as predictable thus far as Calgary’s fall forecast.

Take, for example, the past two stops on this lengthy road-trip.

After blowing a late lead outdoors at the Heritage Classic, they looked sharp for 40 minutes Tuesday in Carolina. But during a third-period letdown, they surrendered a pair of goals and spanned 18-plus minutes without registering a single shot on goal en route to a 2-1 gut-punch.

In Thursday’s opening stanza in Nashville, it seemed like they had loaned their gear to a rec team as some sort of costume swap. The Predators were up 2-0 before the Flames had even bounced a puck off Pekka Rinne’s pads.

After that, to erase a 4-1 deficit and escape with an overtime triumph? M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t do sports films, but even he might have worried this plot-twist was too far-fetched.

“It finally felt like us again in the third, and we felt like we were dictating a lot of the play,” Giordano said. “When we’re playing at our best, we’re fast, we’re making crisp passes and crisp plays and we’re generating a lot. And in the third, it finally felt like we got back to that. Now, we want to keep that moving forward and play with a lot of emotion but also play with that confidence.

“I saw a lot of guys playing with a lot of confidence in the third.”

That confidence, it seemed, had been missing.

Thanks to Backlund’s half-wisecrack, thanks to Tkachuk’s wizardry, thanks to a whole lot of positive contributions from throughout the lineup, there is sudden optimism the Flames could be ready to piece it all together on a more consistent basis.

“As a team, through 15 games, we’ve done a good job of staying in the mix as far as points in the standings go,” said forward Milan Lucic. “But also, I don’t think we’ve really brought our best game other than that third period (Thursday). You want to build off that and get on a roll.”

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